Reading 30 books in 30 days - Days 11-20

Didn’t read a book today. Or the day before that. Or the day before that. 

“Whattafuck, Jonne?”

I didn’t read today because I spent the day being sh*t scared. I’m giving a speech to 1,500 people tomorrow. The biggest event in my life.

So for these three short days, I just really had to take some time to prepare myself. Plus I had two additional assignments due. Excuses, I know – but they’re pretty good excuses, right?

“No can do”, I told myself while shoving my beloved e-reader back to my bag.

Comeback!

Read two books today. Sure, they were as short as my patience, but nevertheless, I’m back in the game!

The e-reading experience is still developing. I find it fascinating to jump between reading e-books and related articles and blog posts on the web. I’m not a fan of multitasking (there’s no such thing), but I learn much faster when I can read about the subject from multiple sources.

So, I could be reading Kindle, then open Medium and search for posts on the topic. Afterwards, if I still have some more questions, I might open Quora and search for specific answers. It’s a fun process!

Once again, I read two books.

Veni, vidi, vici!

Note to self: having an e-reader or a book with you at all times ensures that each minute of your day is productive or constructive. Every time you’re waiting for someone or something, you can pull out your book and start absorbing knowledge. I never feel like I’d ’lose time’, as I can fill all the unwanted breaks with reading.

It adds up – fast.

Same old, same old.

Eat, sleep, read, repeat.

You know how it goes.

Found myself browsing Netflix for over an hour, trying to find the most entertaining series.

Except I wasn’t on Netflix. I was on Kindle, trying to find the most entertaining book for the day.

😀 Yep.

Also, I learned that it’s sheer stupidity to continue reading a book if I find it boring. What’s the point? The information will not stick if I just mindlessly browse through the book.

Somehow we find it strangely difficult to leave a book unfinished, even if it doesn’t interest us. But this hinders learning! You only learn when you’re genuinely interested in the topic and crave to know more. Otherwise, you’re just memorising stuff.

Instead of feeling bad about it, I think we should reframe it as a positive thing that we are making time and mental space for much better and more quality reads!

Dope ideas.

And hence, today I read the first half of The Power of Now. Didn’t interest me, so I tossed it and started reading another book. Took some courage, but I did it!

(To be fair, even the second book was sh*t, but I didn’t have time to toss another book, so I just read it :D)

I started reading at 6pm.

And I read non-stop until this very moment. It’s now midnight.

Woah. I read for 6 hours straight. I entered some sort of a flow state.

I think there are three main reasons for the flow state:

1. The book was amazing and I delved into it (Deep Work by Cal Newport)
2. I used Pomodoro technique to time my reading, i.e. there was no fatigue at any point.
3. I listened to the audio narration while reading. The audio narration was blasting at 3x speed, and my eyes were twitching back and forth faster than ever, but still my comprehension was good.

It’s funny, actually. Cal Newport’s book is all about entering the flow state through deep work. And I read his book through deep work.

Funny.

You know that feeling when you spend the whole damn day reading, you use all your willpower to finish the book in time, you finally crawl back to your bed and then you realise you should still write the daily log?

I spent the first 19 days mastering the art of reading ebooks. Undoubtedly, I became a pro, a master ebookster.

But, as the most famous philosopher of the 21st century, Christina Aguilera, once said, “the roughest roads often lead to the top”. And so it inevitably follows that I have to once again challenge myself and walk the rougher road by switching to actual books.

I went straight to the deep end and started reading the classic 350-page Getting Things Done by David Allen. The longest book thus far, and no chance for audio narration.

Even though I struggled, I survived.